Read Online Brian Garfield by Manifest Destiny - Free Book Online

when you get to know him , Joe thought.
    Walking away to catch up with his client, Joe heard De Morès say with a bite in his tone, “Tell me, Arthur. Is he Jewish?”
    â€œI don’t think so. Dutch ancestry, I believe.”
    â€œI don’t like him.”
    Joe caught up and led Roosevelt upstreet, ignoring the fit of coughing.
    There was no paint on the town; the smell of new boards was in his nostrils—evidence that the wind was favorable, for otherwise they’d have smelled nothing but the abattoir’s stink.
    Roosevelt said, “I should feel sorry for Medora if I were you, old fellow. She’s got herself a cavalier despot for a husband.”
    Joe was surprised by the remark. A year ago Roosevelt surely wouldn’t have made it; he’d have been too filled with vigor—he’d have found something admiring to say about the couple.
    Now there was a bitter note in the piping voice and an intolerance that hadn’t been there before. Give him half an excuse, Joe thought gloomily, and the silly dude would get himself in serious trouble if he went around making those kinds of remarks about the imperial Frenchman. Joe felt he should warn Roosevelt that De Morès was too conceited to let an insult pass; and that he was well armed at all times. But he couldn’t think of a way to do it that might not offend the little dude, so—just for the time being, he reckoned—it was all right to leave things alone.
    Two months ago in the spring there had been rain—torrents. The river had run full, crashing down its banks. Two months from now by August it would dwindle to a fitful stream lurching through cut-clay channels not more than a foot deep. Just now it was half a river, stirrup-high, and they were able to splash their horses without trouble across the gravel ford a hundred yards downstream from the Northern Pacific bridge.
    From there they struck south along the dirt track that passed for a wagon road. It took them across the rails and upriver beneath the bluff—Roosevelt’s hatbrim lifted and turned as he focused his interest on the brand-new De Morès château up there—and around a bend through shade of cottonwoods that briefly interrupted the blast of afternoon sun.
    Joe Ferris was thinking about the girl he had left behind in Newfoundland. In his memory he saw the laugh in her green eyes—as good as a kiss.
    Must have been the sight of De Morès’s big house that put him in mind of his girl. Didn’t usually think about her in the daytime.
    He heard Roosevelt: “It’s said Mr. De Morès has killed two or three Jews in duels.”
    â€œDoesn’t like Jews, does he?”
    â€œI take him to be an unpleasant man all around,” said Roosevelt. “Well despite all that, old fellow, it’s good to be back. I feel as if I’ve come home. It’s an enchanted country. D’you know Poe’s tales and verses? These Bad Lands look just the way Poe sounds.”
    Joe scanned the scarred butte country. The ground was rent into fantastic shapes and splashed with barbaric colors. But after a while you hardly noticed.
    He didn’t know much about anybody called Poe. He’d done some reading in the books from school and from his mother’s library bookcase and he had enjoyed some of them, especially the Sir Walter Scott ones, but none of it seemed to apply much to the country hereabouts, and he didn’t know what Mr. Roosevelt meant but he wasn’t curious enough to inquire further.
    Deep in the horizon’s haze he thought he saw antelope. He didn’t remark it to Roosevelt; he did not hanker for several hours’ hard riding followed by the acrid stink of shooting and the stench, even worse, of bleeding and skinning.
    Safe enough not to point out the herd in the distance: Roosevelt, even with his storm windows, couldn’t see well enough to discover it by himself.
    Joe remembered that much